Tag Archives: Elections

Thanks to my friend Clara for showing me this great tool. It is from the ACLU. You enter an US Congressional district into a dialog, and you get a map and slider that allows you to show how the district’s boundaries have changed over time. This is a lot of fun, and it is very relevant!

This is a topic I’ve been hoping to someday write extensively on, and the truth is I’m not quite ready to do so. But I have an observation that is so startling and so much in line with my thinking on this issue that I thought I’d share it as a way of introducing the topic, as I continue to think about it and collect data. Continue reading How America Ruined Its Own Election System, and How to Fix It→

So, today I was on my way to the pharmacy to buy important medicine for my son. The medicine cost about 50 bucks, and I had a fifty dollar bill in my back pocket.

In my front pocket, I had a twenty.

Just before I walk into the pharmacy, this dude with a mask comes along and says, “I’ve got a gun, give me your money.”

So, I hand him the $20. He grabs it out of my hand and runs away.

I went into the pharmacy, and as the pharmacist was preparing the medicine for my son, I called the police. A cop arrived within seconds.

The cop opens up his clipboard thingie to take notes, and I told him exactly what happened, every detail.

When I finished with the story, he tears the page from his notebook where he was writing up the report out, crumples it up, and tosses it into a nearby waste basket. Closing his clipboard thingie, he says, “Well, OK, then, I guess you won’t need to be filing a report.”

“Why?” I asked him. Just at that moment the pharmacist was handing me my change for the medicine, which ended up costing $48.57, and for which I paid with the fifty I had in my back pocket.

“Well, the guy mugged you, but that didn’t stop you from buying what you came here to buy, did it?” And he walks out, gets in his squad car, and drives away.

All elections should be audited. In some states, they are, routinely. Those are the states that ARE the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Now in Kindle, Soon in Print:

Sometimes called the "fourth African ape," Sungudogo is not a Gorilla, not a Chimpanzee, not a Bonobo, and possibly not even real. Years ago, Sungudogo drew the interest of the world famous primatologist Dieter Phillips, who was funded by a secret society of "scholars and gentlemen" to launch an expedition to determine the veracity of this mysterious primate. Dieter never returned from that expedition, and as the years passed, the whole story drifted into obscurity. But the watchers were always watching, always waiting, for clues of the fate of this expedition. When new evidence came to light, the investigation was renewed into the outcome of Phillip's ill fated trek into the Rain Forest. Who better to follow Dieter Phillip's tracks than his former student, aided by an explorer and mercenary familiar with the area, assisted by two willing Congolese park guards?They were to learn things that went beyond their wildest imaginations, and they would discover secrets about Phillip's expedition, about the rift valley, about themselves, about humanity, that they would never be able to share but that would change their lives forever.